Rain Brings More Than 1,000 Acts of Kindness

It’s pouring and you forgot your umbrella at home. Don’t you wish someone would hand you an umbrella? Volunteers for the Pittsburg based non-profit, The Sprout Foundation, may give you just what you wish. True to its charge to use innovative grassroots tactics, the foundation is acting as a catalyst of positive change with its Here You Go project. Volunteers roam Pittsburgh on rainy days, giving out umbrellas. Their only kind request from the recipients of their gifts is to return the act of kindness and help someone else out. Each umbrella comes with a waterproof card. Recipients are encouraged to write about their experience on these cards and mail them back to Here You Go. The organization posts them here.

Besides promoting good deed and creating a chain of positive interactions, the Here You Go project shows how we can add more meaning to marketing programs and draw audiences into a cause with a simple call-to-action delivered at the right time, in a creative way. The program is memorable because it solves a consumer problem from the get-go. It delivers the product to people at the moment they need it. The experience Here You Go project creates before it asks consumers to generate new acts of kindness also taps into emotions.

The Sprout Foundation inspires and leads by example. It first demonstrates a good deed and then asks for the same in return. The message is clear and direct. Finally, the volunteers enable their audience to pass along the message with the postcards. The organization has an online platform, equipped with social media bells and whistles, which amplify participants’ voice. This web site also helps to showcase the program’s impact.

The Here You Go program serves as a model for those who are planning to give product samples, and those who wish to get community members to take civic action. Read more about this program and similar ones sprouting in Seattle, Baltimore and Sydney here.

Whaleman Foundation Raises Over $28K on SocialVibe

The Whaleman Foundation is an oceanic research, preservation and production non-profit that aims to protect whales and dolphins and their natural habitats. The organization is featured on the cause-related social networking site SocialVibe, where members match corporate sponsors with causes to raise funds. The organization just passed its $25,000 mark. I got an email from SocialVibe on Wednesday. The amount of money raised seems to have gone up even more since then. Whaleman is over $28,000 with more than 75,000 signatures for its petition. The goal is to reach 1,000,000 petitions in the next 115 days. Actress Pannettiere will deliver the online petition and signatures to the International Whaling Commission in June 2009.

The comments from members who are trying to raise money for the cause and signing the petition suggest that Whaleman might reach the tipping point in the next week or so. Seeing the campaign's success makes people want to join and help push the limits, reach goals. The combination of cause-related marketing and social media is a pretty powerful. The site organizes the information and coaches people through each step of the effort. Users don't have to pay a penny out of their pocket. They just need to bring their passion to the click.

To help the cause through SocialVibe, click here.